


Fill the void

by Zoesiapie



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Confession, Cute, F/M, Fluff, Fremione - Freeform, Happy Ending, Hogwarts Seventh Year, Love, Night, Silence, Translation, common room, find each other, fred weasley - Freeform, hermione granger - Freeform, romantic, they come back, they cute, they have feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:22:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28673664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoesiapie/pseuds/Zoesiapie
Summary: Hermione doesn't answer at first, scared that that scenario fits her perfectly, but then she plucks up courage, "Which version do you prefer?""The one where you come down to be found by me," she turns to look at him, admiring that answer and surprised when the same color of flame returns to her view with the fireplace behind her: Fred's hair glows like fire, "Am I to take your silence as consent?""You have to take my silence for what it is, silence," Hermione retorts, finally deciding to sit down on the floor to rest the soles of her feet, "It's not like there always has to be something in the void."Fred smiles and rests his hand on the back of the couch, "The void is meant to be filled."
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Fred Weasley
Comments: 6
Kudos: 46





	Fill the void

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Riempire il vuoto](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/740565) by Sia_. 



Thunder rips through the sky for the umpteenth time and forces her to come to terms with the fact that that night, like so many others, she won't get any sleep. It's not the stiffness of the mattress, or the too-darkness of the room, or Ginny's slow breathing, no. It is the shadow of war, still coming to haunt her. 

She has been trying hard for months not to think about the past, to forget her own parents herself, and with them the wounds that were inflicted on her flesh and pride. Only the scars remain to tell her that some things cannot be forgotten: they are indelible - no matter how hard she stays in the shower rubbing her skin. 

She sits up, hurriedly throwing the sheets at her feet: the chill of the evening immediately takes hold of her, and a little she regrets discovering herself so suddenly. She's clearer now, though; she has enough strength to turn her head toward the nightstand and retrieve with her weary hand the wand she always holds too close, a habit she's embroidered on herself over the months of her escape. She climbs out of bed, strands of hair coming to hang over her shoulders, and is about to spot it on her back with a quick flick of her wrist. 

"Hermione?" the sleepy voice of Ginny reaches her in a worried whisper, "What are you doing?"

She approaches her friend's canopy with slow steps, "I'm going downstairs for a bit," she reassures her, a half smile on her face smacks of truth, "Don't worry, I'll be back soon," with the fingers of her right hand she touches her forehead and strokes her head thoughtfully.

Ginny's eyes search for her in the dark to make sure there are no nightmares tapping her back, but even if she saw them she could do little: she tried her best to understand them, both Harry and Ron and Hermione, but she wasn't there to escape death with them. She nods finally, tucking herself in and waiting for the sound of the door closing to lower her eyelids and go back to sleep. 

On the other side of the wall, Hermione has already reached the stairs going down to the Common Room, so quiet and warm, it always remains one of her favorite places and she can't even count how many hours she has spent reading in front of the fire. She gets closer to the flames, until hier cheeks burn and turn a reddish hue: she sees laughter, she sees warmth, she sees what seems to be a lifetime ago. She rests her hands on her knees and can feel the hardness of the wooden floor against the soles of her feet: she becomes a child again, how many times have mom and dad caught her in a similar position looking for a book in the lowest part of the big bookcase they keep - kept - in the house? She ends up smiling, at the memory of her mother's voice calling to her from downstairs, at her father's caress when she finally reaches the dinner table, at the memory of a family that still loves her. 

"It's not the first time you've cried in front of the fire." A voice reaches her, it's much deeper than Ginny's whisper: it's that of a man she's known for so many years and who is always able to surprise her.

"This isn't the first time you've found me here, no" she confirms, suddenly coming back to reality and the dining room of her old house burning like wood in the fireplace. 

"I could start asking myself questions." he whispers to her, then taking a pause to move a few feet closer, but the witch can't quite tell where he stopped, because she's not aware of where he started - did he start talking on the last step, or by the couch? -. "Are you here because you're cold? Or you can't sleep and you're hoping the heat will make you sleepy? Or do you want to get it over with and are thinking about what it might be like to be erased forever by a flame? With each passing year you become more and more like a book, you'd catch fire in a second, it's like you're made of paper."

Hermione doesn't answer at first, scared that that scenario fits her perfectly, but then she plucks up courage, "Which version do you prefer?" 

"The one where you come down to be found by me," she turns to look at him, admiring that answer and surprised when the same color of flame returns to her view with the fireplace behind her: Fred's hair glows like fire, "Am I to take your silence as consent?"

"You have to take my silence for what it is, silence," Hermione retorts, finally deciding to sit down on the floor to rest the soles of her feet, "It's not like there always has to be something in the void." 

Fred smiles and rests his hand on the back of the couch, "The void is meant to be filled." 

"Says the man with a soul as deep as the abyss." Hermione keeps her gaze up and well into her twin's eyes, which, for a second, glow with the same moonlight: it's always a mystery how Fred is able to understand her so well, and how little she is able to understand him. Maybe it's that she doesn't try hard enough, because trying would mean bringing something that's uncomfortable to the surface. And so it ends up that no one ever knows anything about anyone, in a world where the war still burns in a devastating way.

"What are you implying?" 

"That I've filled many more spaces than you have."

The crackling of the log in the fireplace becomes the only sound echoing in the romm as Fred searches his mind for a satisfactory answer. He stays looking at her and, attracted by that game, ends up canceling some distance and goes to sit by Hermione's side in front of the fire, "It's hard to fill something that doesn't exist." he finally tells her in a whisper, shifting his gaze to the flames, "How can I answer questions that have never been asked?" 

The witch loses her words: it's strange to come to terms with the idea that Fred Weasley is serious, vulnerable in his loose pajamas, and, perhaps for once, truly sincere. No one asked him: at first it was too soon, and in the end, it was too late. She squints his mouth, wetting her lips with the tip of his tongue, thinking about what to say so as not to break the mood, "What was it like to die?" 

"I think you know very well," he answers her immediately, "You've been petrified for days in a bed in the infirmary, you know you never feel anything except for that damned brief second when you realize your life is being taken away and then it all becomes unbearable." 

"I only saw the reflection of death, not death itself," Hermione explains to him calmly, she has the soft tone of a woman who only brings bad news and doesn't know how to ease the pain of the truth.

"You came back too though, that at least you know what it means." Fred smiles and the fire finally decides to dance in his eyes that, Hermione thinks, look so much like two mirrors. 

She remembers to perfection the feeling of breathing again after being petrified, the pressing feeling that she had a second chance, that she still had time, "Is that why you're here?" she finds herself asking too eagerly, "Because out of everything you could have done, it's almost ironic that I chose to be a senior at Hogwarts." 

"What's wrong with a man wanting to increase his educational background?" Fred touches his chest with one hand, indignantly.

"Maybe the fact that this man has never really cared about his own cultural background." the twin laughs at that point, it's a restrained laugh in the middle of the night, but Hermione brings her index finger to her mouth anyway and signals for him to turn it down, "You'll wake the whole school."

Fred shakes his head, "Is it so hard to believe it's just hunger for knowledge?" 

" _It's impossible_."

"I can't lie in front of all this security," he finally confesses with a wicked smile on his lips, "I didn't come back to study."

"Why are you here, then?"

"The day I died I saw a whole life." Fred leans against the hot stone surrounding the fireplace and stares at it with a sincerity that almost hurts: it comes to a scratch and she doesn't know how to react to that provocation. So she approaches him, in an attempt to escape his eyes, and with her fingers begins to caress his palm: will he want to tell her? Can she ask? She realizes that it is too delicate a subject and she struggles to weigh the words, she struggles to get out of the situation. It's Fred's confident gaze again that urges her to do something about it, and finally she convinces herself to ask a little more, "What did you see?" 

"Something incredible, it even surpasses anything I've done up until now, and if you think about it, up until now I've opened one of the most fruitful stores in the entire magical world."

The young witch rolls her eyes and ends up shaking her head in boredom, "You're hopeless" she points out to him, noticing only shortly after that the twin has switched roles and it is he who is caressing her with his thumb. She opens her lips in a smile, as if to urge him to continue. 

"George and I opened a new store, Ron went to work there at a certain point, when he realized that his career as an Auror wasn't going to take off." he shrugs, "I stayed in Diagon Alley because it's closer to home and I always compete with my wife to see which of us comes back first to make dinner. "He begins to tell them furiously, like an old man who, in front of his own grandson, does not dream of closing his mouth: he has been keeping that confession inside for months now, determined to hide what lies on the thin threshold between life and death. Hermione moves her hand away, interrupting for a moment the threads of that story, but she forces him to continue when she leans on his shoulder and leaves the fireplace to her left. She wants him to talk, because she has realized in those few confessions that really Fred has experienced something incredible and as she listens she sometimes shifts and looks at him, meets his uncertain gaze a couple of times and sees in it a living room, a kitchen, a house made of laughter, a future. 

"I try so hard to win every day because she's really bad at cooking and I don't want to tell her. Maybe she knows it herself, that's why she makes it up that at the Ministry they kept her another two minutes every single night." he laughs to himself, looking at the empty space, "We have two children, they love being at the Burrow when she and I are at work: the little girl likes to work with her grandfather in the barn, the boy prefers to spend time with his grandmother making cakes. They take after their mother, they have the same determined light in their eyes that she has since I've known her." 

Hermione feels a little jealous of that life: it sounds so magical that her heart warms in her chest. Fred is convincing when he comes to tell her that it's incredible, and he chimes in, adding a detail to every word that makes it ring true: so she imagines Arthur's voice shouting the names of his own grandchildren, Molly wiping her cheek at yet another red-haired child running around the house. And, shockingly, she imagines a life with Fred: it's hard to say when precisely it began, but she's sure she's been wanting him with all her might for at least five or six months. It could be the mischievous way he tinges her day in those hallways, still covering her with pranks and mischief, or the adorable way he smiles at her when she finally decides to stand up to him. It might even be the tone of his voice in the evening when they meet in front of the fire, the scent of fireworks, the warmth of his hands. 

"It only wavers once when they tell you that you're going to be the next Minister of Magic, but in the end I can convince you that better than you in that chair there could never be anyone else, maybe only Harry, but Harry doesn't want to give up his career as an Auror, who can blame him? He's caught more Death Eaters himself in seven years than his colleagues have in an entire lifetime."

Fred stops talking at that point, he's realized he's said a bit too much and tightens his lips with insecurity, even stopping the slow movement of his thumb. He chooses to look at her anyway, searching for an answer to the question he didn't ask, in an attempt to fill in the blank. 

"Am I?" Hermione breaks the insecurities, "Am I really the best for that chair?" 

"Are you kidding?" Fred laughs, the weight on his heart suddenly dissolving, "You're the brightest witch your age." he resumes stroking her hand, drunk with happiness and the memory of death seems to be getting more and more muffled. 

She blushes, unable to sustain her twin's gaze, "So you're back... "

" _For you_." he completes the sentence and with his free hand retrieves her face to look at his own reflection in the hazel eyes, "I was a fool not to do this the last time we were at school together, but I was so busy opening the Wizard Wheezes, that nothing else existed for months."

"Doing what?" 

It's a bit of a jolting question, but one that fills the sharp silence that has come to pass: a stone's throw from the coast they're still a little afraid to jump into the waves of the sea. Hermione shifts her gaze from his eyes, brings them to her barely ajar lips, and back up again: it's an invitation, as if to tell him that she can't wait a single second longer, because his presence is getting hotter than the flames to his left. On Fred's face there is the shadow of the fire that dances and intermittently lights up all his freckles: they look like stars, lights in the gardens during the summer, a decomposed path to follow. She stops seeing them when they reset the distance and Hermione's lips gently touch those of the twin - it's a kiss that fills the void, that has the power to erase the memory of all the bad things and life suddenly tastes like the future.

"I told you, it's unbelievable."

"This time I can't blame you" Hermione confirms with a shake of her head and rests her forehead against the boy's chest, immersing herself in his embrace. 

"That would be the first." that sentence has a natural sound to it: it implies that there will be a second, a third, a fourth, and then infinity - she forces herself not to exaggerate, after all, how many times have she and Fred gotten along over the years? Except that even disagreeing, even arguing, implies infinity. 

"Hermione." he rouses her from her thoughts with a whisper and a mischievous expression, "Will you go on a date with me this Saturday? To convince you that it's really worth it."

"A date?" the young woman raises an eyebrow, "I don't think that... " _serves_ , because she already knows she doesn't want to be anywhere else, at any other time, with anyone else - only Fred can take her world and turn it inside out with two words and a look, only Fred is capable of filling the void.

"Before you say no... " he mulls it over, squinting his eyes in hopes of finding at least one motivation that might convince her, as if the idea of a future together isn't enough, as if the idea of a laugh a day that chases away demons and turns scars into cotton candy isn't enough, "Don't say no."

" _No_." she finds herself whispering, "I have no intention of saying no." 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> What am I up to? I don't know anymore.  
> I really wanted to get back to writing a light-hearted story about Fred and Hermione, a story that knew so much about them: they have an entirely unique way of looking for each other - and finding each other - that makes my heart explode. So Fred seeks her out, even after risking death, and visits her in the only place they've ever been: at Hogwarts, one last year together. It's a bit crazy, I realize, it's a bit of a solution that a Weasley twin wouldn't really take, but I'm an incurable romantic and the idea of him running after her exhilarates me.  
> I'll end here, I really thank everyone who made it to the end, I hope I've softened you up a little bit,  
> Zoesiapie ❤


End file.
